than if he sits back in his head quarters. ..

>> alia malek presented personal stories of arab immigrants in the u.s. against the backdrop of major events in u.s. the arab american national museum in dearborn michigan host

the hour 10 minute event. >> hi, everybody. fantastic to be here in dearborn. this is one of the stops in my personal journey to completing this book. and it's true, the book in many ways did start after 9/11. i had been an attorney, was an attorney in the civil rights division at the united states department of justice when 9/11 happened. and among the things people are talking about, prosecuting the war on terror or how to keep the homeland safe, one of my colleagues from the criminal division was having conversation to me, and he said you're never going to believe what they're talking about upstairs in a brainstorming session. i said okay, i brace myself and said let me know. he said somebody throughout the idea of the naturalizing naturalized arab-american citizens. i said, that is crazy. once upon a time, when i was a teenager that was a fantasy to

send my parents back to syria and i would've been the first to turn the men. but that didn't really seem particular kosher. of course it wasn't without historical precedent that in world war ii we had turned our japanese-american population. and it didn't happen because it's illegal and the united states has a role of interment. but it kept sword coming back to this idea, and why are they talking about arab-americans in this way. dearborn is an exception but in the national american imagination and consciousness, arab-americans, as americans, are somehow quite invisible. it's like we are a unicorn. you can kind of weight somewhere in a force and maybe you will spot one, come dashing past you. but we are part of the huddled masses that came over in the late 1800s when other people

easily think about americans as a tyrant americans or jewish americans or irish-americans came over. we weren't part of that. we weren't part of that in the imagination. we really are contemporary narratives in contemporary society. yet on the other hand there were all these representations of arabs from over there and arabs as foreign. and arabs as not part of your. i don't have to go into detail as to how not to gleek human eyes of those portrayals were. and this was basically what i thought about it then, i thought that really all kind of sucks and i hope somebody does something about it. i'm going to keep being a civil rights lawyer and where i can do something i would do something. i thought it's pretty inevitable that someone will write a book or somebody will sort of do something that enters into the discourse, these are the kinds of images, other sorts of stories that have been so painfully absent him, not our

micrograms, and i went about my life and that included re-signing my post at d.o.j. on these of the invasion of iraq in 2003 and a move to lebanon and worked there as an attorney. went about my life and then when i finally decide to make sort of the switch into journalism and came back and went to journalism school at columbia, four years after 9/11, that book that i thought was so inevitable had not yet been written or had been published because it takes two to tangle. maybe someone to write but no one gave it a shot. announcement i said, maybe i will take a swing at it. not really knowing anything about how to write a book. so i started thinking there were certain decisions that had to be made. the first one i made was i'm going to write a narrative book. there have been a lot of political or academic work that had been done but that's not a biblical and wide audience and not accessible for a wide audience. i think there's something about storytelling that makes it harder for people to have their

sorts of guards or prejudices out that he was an easy way i thought to kind of engaged hearts and minds. to borrow a term from somebody else. so the second decision i had was how am i going to capture the diversity. because when people think the arab-americans, that's also not particularly accurate that it is not reflective of what a massive amount of x. diversity exist in that moniker, the arab-americans. so what i decided to do was i knew i was going to have to have some ensemble cast, a wide variety of people i will introduce you to and include people from this community. so what i really wanted to focus on was the period in the united states after 1964 and 1965. because there were these three legislative changes that happen on a national level that fundamentally changed america. essentially laid the foundations for the kind of society, someone like barack obama, president in 2008. those are the voting rights act of 65, the civil rights act of

64, and the immigration act of 65. they all happened under lyndon johnson and they fundamentally transform who is america, who can vote, who can participate in the american creation of a society in a political system. so what i decided to do what it together this timeline of events from 1965 to the present that are important from an arab-american perspective. some of those events are important to all americans like 9/11. then other things, since the american memory is much shorter than the arab memory there are some events like the 73 energy crisis more than 91 goals or, sort of pass from american memory. and then other events like what happens to alex in california in 1985 are completely unknown to anybody outside of arab-american or out of aggressive circles and yet had quite an impact on the humidity all across the country. so once i decide to assemble a time when i went about and cast

each of those chapters with a different arab-american to sort of live those moments of time in their skin. you're going to get a feeling for the book as i go forward. when i get a chance to read for you. these events and times are turning point notches in the macro story of arab-americans as much as there is one, but there are turning points in the lives of the people through whom we experience these moments, moments in i should be clear that even though the book has a timeline that goes after 1965 it doesn't exclude that 365 because i focus on people and places that have a history that goes all the way back to the late 1800s. that gets woven into that was one of the things i wanted to do because i wanted to place in the american conscious anti-american narratives of our history that people from arabic speaking countries, you know, mitigate that idea of perpetual form that arab-americans specifically

have. to start the book i wanted to sort of make very tangible what both america and amreeka, what those two places were like before the 64 and 65 lost that and i start in birmingham in 1963. can anyone know what happened in birmingham in 1963? but what happened specifically in birmingham? [inaudible] >> very good. so yes, the bombing of alabama happens and the reason this is a significant event is because when does the supreme court hold segregation unconstitutional? in 1954 in brown versus board. that's a long time before 1963. but anyone who is alive and well in 1963, particularly and dixie would be able to tell you segregation was definitely a way of life. and it was the events of the church bombing that finally pushed jfk to pass a federal civil rights -- he didn't live

to pass it because he was assassinated short after, but that's why that's one of his legislative priorities that lyndon johnson picks up. what i wanted to do was let you experience birmingham alabama and really america before these legislative -- i don't know if anyone can spot the arab-americans in this picture. it's this guy right here. it's number 14. bats and salem. so he's our guide for what birmingham, both birmingham amreeka and birmingham america are like in this parade of time and it's a really tangible way to get a feeling for what's going on. this picture is taken and 93 because the book, which is a book on air america opens up on the football field in birmingham, alabama, in 1940. i did want to give people what to expect or what they think they know about arab americans either history or contemporary society. and its life intersects -- i

started 40 because he is a person in birmingham becomes no because of the football game in 1940. i know this is a totally different conference. do you guys know what the iron bowl is? into southern college football tickets and a competition between the university of alabama and auburn. and this competition start the late 1800s but they stopped playing for 41 years before 1940 because of some dispute over who had to pay the referee. and finally they played in 1948, and hear of this game is and salem. his dad comes from what is palestine from ramallah, and his mom's parents came from lebanon, and they had immigrated to tennessee. so he kind of becomes this football legend in birmingham, alabama. even though athletes can transcend racial boundaries, some things he can't transcend. you learn about that in the chapter but there's an interesting intersection with the church bombing and his life that you sort of see play out in the chapter.

this chapter is called prologue. from here we moved to june of 1967. what happens overseas in june of 1967? [inaudible] >> very good. i don't know who's keeping score between the families, but someone write that down. so this chapter is called home. the character is in baltimore. this is the day she arrives in america by boat. the reason for this event is significant is for two reasons, mainly amongst many others of course, but she is that which is the relationship between arab-americans and our foreign policy in the middle east, and second because these two and i should say there were two distinct waves of immigration to the united states from the arab world. from the late 1800s from all places of northern europe came to a halt, and then immigration after 1965. these are different groups of people, people coming over in the late 1800s, mostly from

modern-day lebanon, syria. and they're coming over before notions of nationalism and an arabism have really set in in the region. after 65 we see much more skilled labor, much more people from the muslim faith coming over, people from other countries, you see egyptian, yemenis, iraqi's, all sorts of people from the arabic world speaking world coming over. this event, you sort of see this in the chapter that takes place here in dearborn, comes to bring these two ways together because of that sort of earlier wave of immigration, the second, third and fourth generation of being an american by96 t events over o implicate them. they have a consciousness starts to awake to this chapter is called home. at this very handsome fellow right here is none other than mr. allen eyman. and this one and apply what is it is his brother.

is chapter takes place here in dearborn. this chapter is anchored to the energy crisis of 73. i went about trying to find my perfect character because i wanted to set this place, this chapter in the american city that's most impacted by the energy crisis, which is detroit. detroit is mostly. it's the place that makes the cars that become kind of a relevant at a time when gas prices are extremely high. there are many arab auto workers working in a auto factory. they are sort of feeling it again i'm not just as detroiters and dearborn is, but arab-americans are stealing it any differently because that kind of come to be blamed for this crisis that supposedly but not realistically started because of the embargo. this chapter is called to send. this event is significant to guess you sort of start to see a

maturity and an awakening and the community and you see them very different and 73 that after the 67 mideast war and much more willing and able to engage. i'm going to come back and read from this chapter. the reason i chose him as a character, is because you sort of see him in 67 in the opening, which i'm going to read from, as also younger and less mature and i'm going to read from the chapter since you all know the more mature version. let you see how that evolution happens. so this chapter takes place in november of 1970. what happens in november of 1979 that america becomes obsessed with? [inaudible] >> the hostage crisis. that doesn't happen in the arab world. the reason that's important is because that's when you see both muslim and arab arab americans use their specificity. these people come from many different countries, different religions, backgrounds. all that starts with marquez sort of amorphous as that is a

threat to america. this chapter is called driven. we experience it in the skin of a mod that these are some of these persian and arabic middle eastern friends and you sort of see that drive that characterizes so many people in the community. you also see how there's that constant sort of tension between how we are represented. the next chapter is the 1985 chapter. it's about alex but i'm not going to show the picture because it's kind of dramatic and it would be a spoiler. but it's very significant because it's the first terrorist event to happen on american soil that grows out of the mideast conference that the casualty happens to be the arab american west coast director of abc that it's significant for arab-americans to guess it's a reparations to the committee. it silences a lot of other people who start to feel like okay, maybe we can be economically successful, maybe

we can see our kids go to great schools that have great futures, but we are not allowed to dissent on the topic of palestine. and you sort of see this initial recoil from political activity. the next chapter is 1987. and it's called about and it's about the beginning of the first. our character is a teenager. here he is in egypt but he is going up in tyler, texas. a place where people have names like tiffin and just in an oblong and they are southern baptists and he is the only guy with hair on his body. and his hair, age 12, starts with one girl here in the next thing his whole head is curly and he's not having any luck with the ladies and he blames all of this on his being arab. that he wants nothing to do with palestine. is a major bummer src is concerned. but with the events that start to happen overseas, he sees kids his age standing up to an

occupatiooccupation. he starts to sort of feel connected and it's interesting to see how his political way or identity happens. from there weo to 1991 in the first gulf war. we experience this with the family that lives in a small, world midwestern town. and it's really a great way to see how american tolerance which sometimes is so easily extended can be so quickly removed. and then how it can reappear again. that kind of shows that short as of the american memory. from there we go to 1995. what happens in april of 1995? anybody? in oklahoma? [inaudible] smack the oklahoma city bombing. this chapter is called coming out that it's all coming out for two reasons. first because by 1995, when the arab-americans get a kick in the past to become politically active because of the six-day war, by 1995 there's definitely a bit more of willingness to be

out as a community. then all of a sudden the bombing happens in oklahoma and everyone blames parentsanyou see this inl but then the community and people stay out. because in part because it turns out it's timothy mcveigh. and archivist chapter is coming out as both day and arab in kansas just miles away across the board from the oklahoma city bombing. is a great way to sort of explore that, the idea that the freedom to be, the different parts of who you are can change depending on where you are. anybody recognize this? the next chapter is about the u.s. presidential election and we experience this with my is a democratic operative. it is an interesting way to see the community in many ways really being courted. there courts being courted by both campaigns.

it takes place also in other parts of it take place here. i feel so bad. i have forever memorialized trento in this picture. but this was the one. [inaudible] >> and it has a very surprised inning. this is the 9/11 chapter which we express in the skin of a catholic priest in brooklyn. but we don't just a within that community because it is brooklyn and its new york and everyone is in new york. he is a great lens to sort of show everything that happens. it's a parish that loses several people in 9/11. within the towers and in the fields and in the plains and then there's this very startled discovery in the world trade center that connects this church and connects to the history of the very first arab colony in the united states which was known as little syria, which the remains of which are buried under the entrance of the

battery park to. in the last chapter is come and i will read into that come is about the second invasion of iraq in 2003. i feel like fort hood is so important that we realize that both muslim and arab-americans have been part of the service for better or worse. because we never know about their experiences are we never hear about them, there's this massive vacuum into which the actions of one person can sort of come to speak for everybody and we see the dynamics and collective guilt that we have come familiar with. so the character in this chapter is abraham al-thaibani that he is a yemeni-american guy, amerind. he grew up in new york city. he decides to enlist after 9/11 because his city is attacked, you know, what happens. he lives in northern brooklyn right across the east river from lower manhattan and at the same time he is sort of reading someone has happened to his seat that he is running through the streets of brooklyn looking for his wife and he can't find her.

all the debris from the centers is falling on top of him. and he decides he wants to enlist because he wants to find whoever did this to his city. and instead he finds himself in iraq. and like many other soldiers who don't know why they are in iraq and afghanistan, he decides to focus on seeing to it that everybody he knows and he trained with comes back alive in one piece and where he can, doing things to help iraqi civilians. so this is from his chapter. this is the second scene. he leaves for iraq without telling his wife that she thinks he is just reporting for his regular sort of training duties. because he can't bear to say goodbye to her. you know, with her knowing that he is leaving and maybe coming back. in the early sunrise hours of april 11, 2003, 3 weeks after the americans had invaded iraq a marine shouted out to ibrahim and his partner, something does happen on the bridge with abe's platoon.

he was climbing to the passenger side of the desert colored humvee ready to head out from the iraqi college, the marines had transferred into their headquarters in the city. he scanned the reader and found the panic play-by-play shouted by reservist with his old platoon. shots fired, civilians hit, civilians hurt. abraham and his partner changed course and rushed to the bridge which had been commandeered by the company of the two to five. marine reservist from pennsylvania, new jersey and new york. abraham had trained and stricken at the 225 until arriving in iraq when he was attached to bring counterintelligence because he spoke arabic. as he and his partner drove through the deserted streets, the screams continued over the radio. abraham thought his marine brothers under fire and urged his partner jory. as intelligence officers they need to know of and head off any potential provocation to the iraqi population. injured civilians which would undermine efforts to win the hearts of iraqis who had failed to see the americans as

liberators. he knew that go 200 would've had no translator with them at the bridge but the only arabic they were a quick with woodward catoctin, back at camp lejeune where they had gathered before flying to kuwait before they were helicoptered with the mission to secure the shiite city. and on top of it all, it was abraham's platoon. abraham's partner pulled up to the northern entrance to the bridge and abraham braced himself for a big firefight. oh, man, what happened, he shouted out as the humvee slow down. and older marine whom abraham recognized ran up and pull back the wire. it's horrible. it's horrible he told abraham, shaking his head. its little kids he said in disbelief. abraham's partner maneuvered through the sandbag bunkers speeding 10 100 began the bridge and parked the car close to the southern entrance checkpoint. abraham jumped out and scanned the people lying in front of the bullet riddled and. blood and broken glass all around him. the smell of gunpowder still in the air. he gets overheated stew of the

guns. all he heard around him were the screaming and crying coming from the bodies lining the bridge. he did a quick and incomplete accounting as he ran over. there was the driver, the only man in the group, light shot on his ice cream that he was going to die. he saw a little boy wounded in the that there was a woman bobbing back and for. there was the doctor tending to another. then he saw the two casualties. lying side-by-side rat in the life of soldiers ponchos were to toddler size bodies. their blood had soaked through the plastic cocoons in which they have been carefully swath. someone told him they were two baby girls. abraham paused for only a second. he could save only those still living. to a shot he shouted out in every, and as he did he realize that the waiting woman held a lifeless little boy in her arms. he had been hidden by the folds of her. is the big all right he asked the woman again in arabic? getting down to check the child. sheiks want a abraham away from her son, continued to cry until

she realized that someone was speaking to her in arabic. she took abraham's hand. what happened but why did these people do this she asked? we thought the war was over she can to did? her large black eyes are drowning in her grief but why did you kill my babies? she screamed at him as she began to hyperventilate. you took my breath. the doctor came over to abraham and told him that the woman had been shot in her long. abraham saw the blood seeping from underneath her. but her son was okay. that doctor asher abrams at the boy had just passed out. maybe that was for the better. from all the shock. but they wouldn't be able to treat these will be on the bridge. they have to get them to the air force base 20 kilometers south. a cargo anglers was already on the way. abraham wanted to know what had happened. signs were posted hundreds of yards from the checkpoint warning iraqi's in arabic that the bridge was open only to

military traffic. for those who could not read there were pictures that should have communicated the message that abraham had made to teach everyone at least one were. stop, in arabic. the ones who had shot at this van full of civilians. the marines manning the checkpoint told him they had yelled out several times in english and arabic for the band to stop but it had run past the stop sign, pass the bar by. into the marines it seemed like they were speeding up that the soldiers finally opened fire with m-16's and in the machine gun. because the van had continued to come at them. with the marines blinded by the iraqi sun rising in front of them, they could not see into the band that they could not see the babies. the shooting would be classified as justified, abraham realized. finally, the annulus arrived at the mother of the two dead daughters already heavy with out her newly added sorel would not

budge that she begged abraham to carry her son but he let another marine do it so he would be able to help the woman. her arms free, she threw dirt from the ground beside her into her face beating her cheeks and crying. i can't believe this happened that i can't believe you did is that we didn't need you to do this to saddam never took anyone's life in my family. abraham looked around. he was the only one on the bridge able to understand her. this is asked up he kept telling himself what he could only imagine what he would do if you're in the same situation and his family were suddenly dead. let's go. we need to get you medical attention he explained that we have to get you into that vehicle. he pointed to the cargo into that she was calm and quiet for a moment and read for him to help her. he held her hand. suddenly she began yelling again. you should be ashamed of yourself. you are in a. you are coming to an arab country to kill arabs? when she said that, abraham thought, i have to do with this also? he tried to stay thick skin but

he was pissed off and shook a. killing women and children he thought, i didn't sign up for this. they finished loading facilities into the anglers including the bodies of the two baby girls. they drove behind them in the humvee. they were both quiet as they drove through the deserted streets. more than anything he felt sadness for the woman whose name he never thought to ask. he tossed into this new world a silent prayer that there would be no more situations like this morning's sunrise. he hoped someone was listening. and i'm going to also just read from this chapter. . .

see for themselves what's going on because young men in their 20s can take care of everything and figure it out for themselves, so by that evening -- they are smart enough to know to get the hell out of there by that point so by that evening allen decides to watch out and burn from the front porch of his house in the south end said that is where we are going to join alan. for those of you who have read this chapter and have it memorized i am doing a bridge person so don't go crazy. monday night, so this is monday,

july 24, 1967 alan decided to keep his distance. he watched beach returns did from his family's front porch in the south end, the poorest neighborhood in der bourn where three score miles stood in the head and shot of the ford plan and its eight rising smoke stacks. this madness might be new but for alan the ship had been hitting the fan for a while. it started when the government took his older brother roniie and send him to the and although he needed one more surgery to fix his shattered and working in the factory for four. alan was left living every day with a fault where the hell is he at but before ronnie had gotten screwed by the government alan planned to boost his own draft as soon as a graduate of high school in 1965. they're on will serve to the air force and army and alan was proud of them. he truly believed in the united states fought in of war it was on the side of good, after all, the country fought fascism in world war ii only after despicable sneak attacks by

terrible vicious and evil enemy. now we were under attack by a new enemy, alan believe, and it if we didn't fight them over there the fight wouldn't appear. it didn't make sense to alan that a guy like ronnie with a with a busted him should be in the imam said. he started reading about again, and took a course in college and by the time he got the delta that your alan fop whole thing was bullshit. nevertheless it felt strange ronnie was hiding somewhere and alan wasn't getting his back, a lesson he learned earlier when he got a whopping from his father when they were kids. walking back from school to a kid had come up to ronnie and told him he wanted to fight. ronnie handed alan his books and told him to go home. when he got they're the father, who worked in midnight shift as a janitor, was wearing his usual slippers, smoking a cigarette and having his coffee and a ford motor company cut. where's your brother, he asked

alan. he's going to fight a kid, he shrugged. without changing shoes he ran out smacking him with slippers as the cannon that door to read the father then looked at alan and said come here. what, alan protested. he knew he was going to get it. i didn't defeat could didn't fight. he got worse than his brother. don't ever leave your brother alone in a fight. get in your room. in the south and they were all like brothers and had one another's back. it was a kind of place if one of the guys can to the pool hall and said someone was about to jump than the other guys would go no questions asked. when raviv visited alan and boot camp, the first time ever separate, he realized ronnie was on his own. he didn't have anyone. alan sat on the porch facing detroit just a few blocks away. their neighbor from across the street an italian from brooklyn who married a yemeni guy was there with her son, tony. alan's sister kept coming in and out of the house and was sitting

next to the sister alice on the porch swing. she'd been picnicing the day before on the fair grounds but about a hundred other people when they receive words the riots were spreading. she hadn't been able to make it back to her mother's in highland park she had come to ronnie's parents and sit with her daughter. together they watched the orange glow of the sky, 29 fires out of control that night in vietnam. is this what ronnie saw in vietnam, alan wondered? it looks similar to the news they watch in the states. they steered the black smoke as the smoke rose from the building casualties. the dark haze covered of detroit much more honestly than this mark of the -- spoke of the ford plant. alan wanted out of here, finish college and buy a nice house in a neighborhood where you didn't have to take your window shut to keep from the soot or don't worry if you get your car outside it wouldn't turn rusty from the fire negative. ford neighborhood lee on the

wrong side of the few tracks and from the west where management left, it was completely obscured from view by the ruched. the south and was a neighborhood full of immigrants, children, great children and even great-grandchildren. they had come on the promise of a job and pay. their nationalities, italians, poles, romanians, serbians, armenians and the syrians were among them. the syrians came mostly from jul jacinta 1943 had become part of the lebanon only after the lebanese after danny thomas got his own tv show with a lebanese director of the the stop calling themselves syrian and becoming lebanese. the yemeni merchant marines who traveled from a into detroit port came to worship at the sunni mosque on liberty days to meet some eventually stayed and now 10% of the south and had origins in arabic speaking world cash. but the money is for single men or had wives and again in favor supporting. alan and the other yemenis socialize only on the houses on the deck. to get a job at ford many have

anglicized their arabic name giving their children english names in hiding their hussain and the middle name. so it became amen and alan and ronnie were used which their parents started using evin at home when their children started school. secure they were. alan's thought there was in his 26 year as a gender of four. ronnie had been there a year before his hand got crossed and alan signed up with the company in 65 during senior week. he already worked three days by the wind at his prom. in another job is meant just to last the summer. alan thought he would never last two days let alone been working his third summer. he wanted to quit after the first day that there was no way to do that and still live in his father's house. at least with their diets now they didn't have to go to work. but just like how ronnie disappeared, the south was disappearing from beneath him and more bullshit like urban renewal, more like removal alan

flout. there were buying up their low-income houses and clearing them to convert the south and into a industrial zone. the mayor hubbard wanted a buffer between the defeat could deport and dearborn. plenty of the good people the south and was detroit and they didn't care any way what happened to the greasers and factory five children. but it would all be moved if blacks came in and burned the south and around them as mayor hubbard was morning. hubbard who called black folk the inward and plant there and i get on martin luther king to put the fear of god in them all. on the part alan was afraid of what would happen to them in the chaos. the south and after all border detroit and they were separated only by an invisible force field that ran along arteries like the avenue. and of course alan within be surprised if black sea to the dearborn cash. blacks who worked at the road, nearly one-third of employees, not to think about living in dearborn in fact they went out of their way to go home after their shift traffic and drive through. hubbard said he wasn't going to let anyone come from detroit and

harm dearborn but alan wasn't going to count on hubbard to help the south and cash. if anyone came near his house, his family, his girlfriend or his neighborhood he would be the one to give them a fight. as alan swung lazily back-and-forth on the swing a loud boom may differ in one jump. a gunshot, the hour fighting! alan found himself shall. callis shoved her daughter into the house and screamed to protect her. before he got in the house, alan remembered himself i will go check and see what it is, he declared, the man of the house. the women pleaded with him should be careful, be careful. around back alan saw what happened. their neighbor shot to have the choice of drawers as attempting to move it. god, he thought why should i feel scared? he was sneak peek was scared of stuff sneaking on him. he decided to hit to his girlfriend's house five blocks away she lived with her mother, sister and brother-in-law that they were on vacation.

alan's family pleaded not to go but he wanted to make sure karen was safe and he wanted to be able to spend time with her in an empty house. he arrived at her house to find her startled to read someone had come by and being on the door. she was also not alone. robie, her best friend was there as well. karen, who knew how to shoot, wanted alan to load of her brother's shotgun. he said of the rifle and hung around a couple of hours but robie wasn't going anywhere so he headed up to the avenue at the main drag in the south end. when alan got to dick's as the like kept to make light he found at least one other to become 100 other guys on the street as any other warm summer night. alan joined his friends standing in front of the pool hall where the older guys and after they graduated from the drug store next door. the guys were smoking, shooting the breeze to read the national guard had been at the patton park right up on dick's but on the detroit side. across dick's a boulevard of several leaves from two guardsmen jeeps were parked.

something tough alan's group decided to light firecrackers. boom, boom! the jeeves will ground and came over. what are you guys doing, the guards asked with machine guns pointed, what's going on? the guys hollered back don't holler about us. all was fine. go back where you came from, please. we can take care of ourselves. and that is where we sort of leave alan in 1967. [applause] so that is how the book is told and that's why it is easy and not scary because i know a lot of things arab are scary or we are told they are scary. but i think to an interesting discussion since c-span's here and we can show them what aliterate crowd we are. i think they want you to go to the microphone. so if anybody has a question. >> yeah, in your chapter about alex i know i read the book, and

by assuming maybe some of the audience has, but for those that haven't, the killers of alex, have the ever been apprehended? tolino with your? >> yeah, and that's a great question. that's the problem with the alex case. to the state remains -- nobody has been prosecuted or a arrested for this crime. and the people who are believed to be the suspected killers, some of whom have died -- but that is what is the problem. that is what since the message so loudly and clearly to the community. this happened in 1985. we are in 2009. it gives this idea killing is like the cure song. the idea of killing an arab is still something that was done with impunity. and interesting thing about the alex murder is that he sort of killed and reprisal for the mortar -- murder of klinghoffer,

who the palestinians hijacked. reagan visits with klinghoffer's widow and there's all of this attention, stories are written about him. we know his favorite foods, the restaurants he liked to go to aid his neighborhood in the west village. and who alex ase has never gotten correct. sometimes the call and a plo activist -- it never says, they never can it get alex's story right and just like klinghoffer's widow, she was widowed and so that's one of the toughest chapters, have to say one of the toughest to write and read that important, it's very important as tough as it is we don't forget and move past it and then it becomes part of the understanding of american history, the narrative of american history.

>> in the story you told about the jeneane from new york who decided to enlist in the army and fight against those who committed 9/11. i don't know if you have interviewed or talked to one arab-american who had been to iraq and if there is that conflict that people have felt between being loyal to america and want to defend their country year, at the same time feeling like they're going to iraq to fight in a war and maybe they feel bad about fighting, killing other arabs. did you encounter that in your research, and can you give us some insight? >> that's definitely a dynamic that does exist but i want to point out that is the sort of dynamic that exists for a lot of the people who in list and go and fight. there's a lot of people who dissent from the iraq war not

give iraq policy and who are not just arab-americans. i mean everybody that they have signed up and committed, they have kind of reconciled themselves to that. is it -- i think if you feel this is in on just war the fact you have to kill people unjustly is going to affect -- the minute you have that orientation a.b. being arab makes you predisposed to save the unjust but we should be clear there are so many soldiers that dissent. these are the choices they find themselves having to make to honor their commitment but other arab american soldiers -- especially after fort hood because the to abraham again, and actually of the people here can me the answer that question. it's negative the conflict is ine than the sort of understand abraham's case and other people who in list after 9/11, whether the arab-american on muslim american one off, that it didn't matter who had attacked -- i don't know

how to explain it to you. 9/11 was very personal for those in d.c. and new york because we lost people and we were afraid we lost people. but then to find yourself, i sort of lost my train of thought. but, you know, i think for a lot of these guys the problem is it doesn't seem justified. not that the victims are arab. i think, you know, he was fine to take on the taliban or al qaeda, whoever he imagined or understood to have attacked new york because they put his family at risk. but especially, i mean, for me the reason i read it for him's jeter and this is one of the chapters i first wrote so we before i do, i rode his chapter in 2006. i think it's so important that we acknowledge that arab-americans and muslim americans have been part of the services. i don't endorse military service per saban just that invisibility is just incorrect. it is a historical.

and we can't really -- that is the point of the whole book. we don't know ourselves as a country whether we are looking at our or have a familiarity with all of the experiences of the different people that make up america and americans. uh-oh. [laughter] >> no, i want to compliment you on tracing the important times in the developing civil human rights in the united states through these benchmarks. backend period of time, you know, when people were protesting in detroit, too, the civil rights struggle was a central focus. and sometimes a was difficult for the minority groups to understand their vested interest in establishing civil rights for black americans because black americans several of a civil right the didn't apply to every other group and every other person in our country. however, i think the first scam bombing of the world trade center, back to the 90's, the

first bombing of the world trade center kind of marked the time when the pendulum is swinging that we're there was an expanding time of freedom. i remember as a young man freedom was being insured more. was being guaranteed more. it became not only illegal to discriminate against groups, it became unacceptable as a social dynamic yet post 9/11 and 73% of black americans agreed was okay to profile arab-americans and it seems the arab-american community will be the first one on the front line to begin to lose rights. do you see the possibility as the civil rights lawyer and a government bureaucrat at one time the possibility that this pendulum is going to swing back toward the middle or is it going to get worse? what is your prognosis for the future?

>> okay, definitely don't want to be in the business of predicting things but i think if you sort of look at american history over the long term it is in the cycles and pendulums. i think a lot of, you know first of all it was important -- all went to the civil rights division because of because i wanted to defend or in force only the civil rights of arab americans are on americans. i felt like it was important to place ourselves within the movement because it is true we have all benefited. we didn't have to donner -- people blight for the civil rights act. people died to change this country and wasn't our blood that was particularly shed and so we know a lot to them and that is why in some ways i wanted to pay the debt by going and working in the civil rights division. i think things could have gotten really bad after 9/11 and they did in many ways yet i feel like

it has swann backed since when i think that as a nation sort of electing a person who repudiates -- adamle obama asking to ultimately do but i think we give a very strong statement that we do not approve of what the bush administration did and i think after fort hood if i can share a personal anecdote, you know, i went to a very subpar public high school in baltimore and after fort hood a lot of my high school friends i haven't been in touch with for years because facebook now we've reached out to foot hoard hid sifry when your community okay? is anything going to happen and that wasn't my experience after 9/11 and i thought there had been a sort of sensitizing that happened to other people and i think after 9/11 better late than never. a lot more people from the arab and muslim communities start to place themselves in the larger civil rights community and contract afterwards and i started to build bridges and once the bridges are built in to

be harder to sort of i think turnaround and for the black folks who said if after 9/11 or for everybody who set that also has a psychological component i can understand, but i don't think people in the community, civil rights community have not said that and i think have now seen us try to join them honestly and earnestly and we should give credit to the fact because when it's someone else's turn in the hot seat after 9/11 it was japanese-americans who really reached out to a lot of the arab-american communities and so if there's one prediction i'm going to make when the pendulum swings again and it's against someone else we better be the first ones to speak up as long as we are in a position where we are safe or feel like we can. do you guys really think the camps are coming? [inaudible] you do? >> i think they are available. some of their in louisiana.

>> it happened before. the united states now -- i'm sorry the united states now is talking about taking military action against iran possibly using nuclear weapons because some of their installations are so [inaudible] there is an unprecedented for that, too so yeah, it wouldn't shock me a great deal. >> i think the louder and more present and ingrained in society we are the harder it would be -- as of today there are still about 4,000 arab-americans in prisons that were in prison after 9/11. some are in the process of being deported. >> not arab-americans' though. >> they are americans, they are. they may not have a citizenship or green card [inaudible]

they can be deported. >> notte if we speak up and do our part and we can't do it alone so it requires making alliances and not once of convenience but once actually built -- the platform can't just before air of honor or the air of sake but has to be civil and human rights and social justice. >> one of the things that disturbs the -- my family came here during the first week in the early 1900's. i had a great temples that fought in world war i and that fought in world war ii and recently the soldier that shot at people in the fort hood -- it really disturbs me people are focusing -- americans are focusing on that person when there has been lots and lots of

arab-americans who fought for this country and earned medals and some have died for this nation and they are not recognized. all they see is this soldier negative shot at people, this american or this area who shot at people in fort hood, and i can't tell you how it disturbs me when we always stereotype and movies and television and on the news. i remember one time during the 80's when they kept talking about syrian terrorists and like you and i get off to the to -- and of syrian and i was in fear of the people think of as of that service. the blomquist together we are christian or muslim as far as americans' concern if you say you are arab be lumpy together

as one. what is your feeling? >> i think -- that is definitely one of the reasons i wrote the book because i don't always ought to be reactive. i would like to try, were it possible to be proactive and that is true, that is what kind of always was mind-boggling to me was people came through ellis island, arab-americans' actually the so-called syrians served in disproportionately high numbers of other immigrant groups in world war i and world war ii but that notion persists and for many reasons i go into the first chapter part of it is because of how the history of naturalization, the first wave of syrians happened in the united states but what i would like to do is if american history or emeritus of american history or contemporary society is like a big prosaic. there's so many titles missing that we don't see so i am just

trying to put some of the titles that up so the picture is clear and it is a persistent idea that there is a four ns two arabs that they are not part of this, they are not part of us is the problem and we should know more. it shouldn't be just those in this room that the people have served in the services or contributed scientifically or politically to the civil rights movement. all we can do is try to fill in the gaps, and this is not the only book that is ever been written or is ever going to be written. we need to sort of encourage more of these interventions because no one is going to do that because it's the right thing to do. so until someone else figures out how to make a profit off of i think we should at least because we believe in it be introducing those narratives into the national conversation. >> i just have one more comment to make. i teach citizenship one night a

week, a volunteer teacher and i ask my class this fall why do you want to be americans and you'd be surprised how much they say you know we like the freedom here and the last person kind of ended all by saying i love america and it almost put me to tears because i was thinking americans think you hate us and want to kill us. >> yeah, i mean there's a massive gulf of or vacuum of information, and unfortunately who creates knowledge its schoolbooks, education, newspapers, a journalistic product, pop culture products, movies and tv and until someone else -- all i can say is i believe that is a problem. i believe the solutions are not impossible to imagine what they are. the of these sorts of interventions and i encourage people and the fact that you

have the museum here is a massive step in that direction and we can't all be -- someone to live their lives and do their thing that if you feel it upon you you can engage in these teaching moments by all means do it. i feel like just singing i am cerium is inviting me teaching moment but okay, bring it on. we can take it. [inaudible] >> i can't leave without making a comment and that is i want to congratulate you on a work that has so comfortably and personally introduced the readers to arab-americans on an individual basis. i think it's a wonderful idea. discrimination and prejudice are easy to practice at a distance and against a group but

difficult to maintain those prejudices when you get to know someone personally and you've done that in your introduction. now, the most important thing is i want to read more, seymour and hear more and keep up the good work. [applause] >> that's not just directed at me. [laughter] >> i know you said you wanted to kind of be more pro-active than reactive but i also authors sometimes inject certain things like symbols in their look to spark reaction from their readers. like what things did you implement in your book and what reaction were you trying to provoke from your readers to spark change? >> for starters i was trying to play on -- where rider i thought people would predict with the chapter would be like i tried to not do that and i use images. i think this image speaks so powerfully and strongly especially once you know in

1948. yeah, i did i introduced arabic inside the book to make it more familiar i plead with -- in the chapter coming out the guy is walking past a protest everybody's saying god hates fags. he hadn't found anything that is in the kuran commesso for a minute -- they are talking god, christian, bible, christian text and makes sense to him that it makes sense to him as alladi and kuran and i try to do that in places but i really wanted the voices of the person of each chapter to come through. that's not my language, that's alan's language and the way he thinks and other characters talk so pictures and like 9/11 i think that chapter surprises everybody that reads it and it is a ferry -- i thought because 9/11 is so we did and ine